Re: How much difference do you think cables makes in the audio quality of your system

"So basically if you're looking for a good wire it does pay to spend a little extra and buy a good cable. Why? Because you have a better chance of getting a good 12 AWG run of cable with better insulation and less chance of copper corrosion. Still it doesn't mean you should spend more on a higher line from a decent brand. There IS a difference. There is however no reason to spend stupid money on it unless you just like spending money."

Does being able to differentiate the sound mean it is better? Or is it just that it is identifiable. I'm not suprised that many people like planar and electrostatic speakers--they sound airier and different. Whether that is wjhat the masterer intended is a different story.

The best things one can do to improve sound are 1) GETTING GOOD ACOUSTIC TREATMENT IN THE ROOM 2) GETTING THE BEST RECORDED MUSIC (source material) YOU CAN 3) unless you love palnar speakers, get a triamped speaker with controllable (analogue or digital) crossovers that you can dial in. A great example is the Linkwitz Orion.

Re: How much difference do you think cables makes in the audio quality of your system

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstarr

"So basically if you're looking for a good wire it does pay to spend a little extra and buy a good cable. Why? Because you have a better chance of getting a good 12 AWG run of cable with better insulation and less chance of copper corrosion. Still it doesn't mean you should spend more on a higher line from a decent brand. There IS a difference. There is however no reason to spend stupid money on it unless you just like spending money."

Does being able to differentiate the sound mean it is better? Or is it just that it is identifiable. I'm not suprised that many people like planar and electrostatic speakers--they sound airier and different. Whether that is wjhat the masterer intended is a different story.

The best things one can do to improve sound are 1) GETTING GOOD ACOUSTIC TREATMENT IN THE ROOM 2) GETTING THE BEST RECORDED MUSIC (source material) YOU CAN 3) unless you love palnar speakers, get a triamped speaker with controllable (analogue or digital) crossovers that you can dial in. A great example is the Linkwitz Orion.

Greg

Well to go along with the people tests we got our scientific readings of everything. Planar speakers are more accurate and better at recreating what was originally intended. There is really nothing new to that information. Loudspeakers for music were created in the 20s by the famous engineers Rice and Kellogg at the just as famous Bell Labs. Before that you had different speaker types created (but with no real use) like Sir Oliver Lodge's cone loudspeaker. However it was at Bell Labs where the cone became refined and eventually lead to the speaker industry as we know it. In their documentation to their superiors at Bell Telephone they specifically used the word "reluctantly," to describe their decision of choosing cone over electrostatic. They admitted that the electrostatic was more accurately creating sounds but was way too large to be the economic choice.

The only reason electrostats ever made it to production was that the Navy needed more accurate speakers for testing. A team of engineers came up with a new electrostat for the Navy's testing. It was far more accurate than anything they had so it was used for the testing. One of the engineers was the man behind the famous Janszen tweeter. This was of course an electrostatic tweeter. The most famous versions of speakers using this tweeter were likely the old Acoustic Research stuff.

The rest is history.

Electrostatics and the electrostatic hybrids seem extremely accurate and in fact we've found through testing that most distortions to the signal are from the rest of the chain and not the speakers themselves.

So since Rice and Kellogg made their discoveries and wrote all about their findings we've had the slow development of electrostats (in comparison to cones) and the development of cones to overcome the deficiency problems that are inherent in the design. The most important part of cone tech now is crossover technology (which is overcoming those deficiencies).

There is absolutely no argument against your point of room acoustics however. This is indeed the most important part of any listening environment. Basically there is real science behind the choice of "planar," vs "cone," and the human ear appears to be able to notice it and lean towards it.

Re: How much difference do you think cables makes in the audio quality of your system

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstarr

"So basically if you're looking for a good wire it does pay to spend a little extra and buy a good cable. Why? Because you have a better chance of getting a good 12 AWG run of cable with better insulation and less chance of copper corrosion. Still it doesn't mean you should spend more on a higher line from a decent brand. There IS a difference. There is however no reason to spend stupid money on it unless you just like spending money."

Does being able to differentiate the sound mean it is better? Or is it just that it is identifiable. I'm not suprised that many people like planar and electrostatic speakers--they sound airier and different. Whether that is wjhat the masterer intended is a different story.

The best things one can do to improve sound are 1) GETTING GOOD ACOUSTIC TREATMENT IN THE ROOM 2) GETTING THE BEST RECORDED MUSIC (source material) YOU CAN 3) unless you love palnar speakers, get a triamped speaker with controllable (analogue or digital) crossovers that you can dial in. A great example is the Linkwitz Orion.

Re: How much difference do you think cables makes in the audio quality of your system

"Agreed have you ever tried Silver cables?"

Yes I have tried Kimber Silver "Kables". For me there were no discernible auditory differences. Then again, I used them on a very easy to drive system with 5 Monitor Audio Gold Reference speakers ( 4 x Monitor Audio GR10's & one MA Centre Chanel).

They were a friends cables as I had no desire to pay that much for speaker cables.

There are so many good amplifiers with a stable and solid output impedance, plus a lot of excellent 6-8 ohm speakers that have a friendly impedance when connected to a solid amp, that it makes little sense to pay more for any expensive cabling that makes outrageous claims.

A great and honest company, such as Blue Jean Cable, sells great Belden speaker wire from 10-12 ohm and from 0.55/ft to less than a dollar a foot. They also sell a nice Canare cable at $1.05/foot.

Belden makes cable for many of the "high end" pseudo-manufacturers. They have Belden wrap it specially so it appears different, but electronically it is identical. Sure, Belden makes some proprietary designs for some companies, but Belden is very honest about what it considers its best cables and gives the measurements to back it up. I can't remember one "boutique" wire company that supplies a complete electrical readout. To me, that speaks volumns.

I believe every speaker cable has a diffeent RLC value and along with the load of the speaker will sound minutely different. As long as the Amp can stomach the load. I would not use very thin cables. Seems like there are many different flavors or configs. For the goof get a few different cheap cables gauges,spacing,weave etc. and change them on the fly.